Chapter 45
JANE
“Can we go to bed?” I heard myself ask without my brain having given permission for the words. “You said I get to decide where we go, and I want to go to bed.”
For a long moment, I thought he might turn me down. Because why not? My own mother had thrown me solidly under the bus today, driven over all my hopes and dreams not only for myself, but for my brothers and our family name, and then she’d shoved it into reverse and driven over me again.
My youngest brother knew I’d been bankrolling their lives, which meant it was naive to think Isaac, Ryan, and Holden didn’t know as well. Colin had always known, but the others? Fuck, I just really don’t want to think about it.
Alex just looked me and then, without a word, because he was the most perfect man I’d never even thought to ask for, he stood and extended a hand toward me. I placed my palm in his and he pulled me up, slowly leading me to his bedroom.
Our bedroom.
The notion was still beyond crazy, but that didn’t make it any less true. Especially now that I’d shown up on his doorstep with all my most important earthly belongings in tow.
All the lights in the room were off, except for a single lamp on the nightstand. It lit the cavernous bedroom in a soft, golden glow. The entire city sparkled like a blanket beyond his sprawling windows.
He stopped when we were in the room, still holding my hand as he turned to face me. “Do you want to take a shower before bed?”
I slowly shook my head, eyes locked on his. I took a step into him and let go of his hands only to wrap my arms around his neck. “What I want is for you to take me to bed.”
A lock of hair fell across his forehead as he angled his head to look directly into my eyes. Those piercing green eyes weren’t filled with heat the way they usually were when I said anything along those lines. Tonight, they shone with worry. The furrow between his eyebrows completed the picture.
“Do you not want to?” I asked, trying to keep the sting of rejection out of my tone. “It’s okay. I—”
“Let’s get one thing perfectly straight,” he said, tightening his grip when I tried to move away from him.
That gaze bored into mine fiercely, his voice loaded with meaning.
“I always want you, Killer. Always. That’s not a question.
The only question is whether you’re sure you want this after the day you’ve had. ”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything.
” I pushed myself up on my tiptoes and brushed the barest of kisses across his lips, my fingers tangling into the hair at the back of his head.
“Here’s the thing, Alex. You were right downstairs.
I lost everything today. Everything except you, but it turns out that having you makes it worth losing everything else. ”
He blinked a couple times in rapid succession and opened his mouth to speak, but I pressed a finger to it and inhaled a deep breath.
“No. Let me. Please. You’ve said so much.
You’ve made me feel like I could keep going on one of the worst days in my life, and you told me that you’re in love with me. ”
A small smile quirked on his lips. “So you did catch that, huh? I was starting to wonder.”
“Oh, I caught it. My head was just spinning too much to make sense of it at the time. I was being pulled in too many different directions at once.”
“So you said.”
“I did.” I stroked my fingernails across his scalp and pushed myself flush against him, still never looking away. “It’s only you and me now, though. One good thing about this post-Thayer world is that you have my full attention.”
“For now.”
I shook my head. “Whatever happens tomorrow, happens. The only thing that’s important to me now is you. Because I love you too, Alex. I’m in love with you and I think I have been all along. I just didn’t know it because I’d never felt it before.”
Alex suddenly gripped my hips. His tongue parted my lips as he kissed me, his words coming out in ragged pants between kisses. “You love me?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” I smiled against his mouth. “You’re stuck with me now, dear husband.”
“Damn.” He smirked, lifting his head away from mine but using his grip on my hips to push me toward the bed. “Oh, well. I suppose that’ll be okay.”
As he laid me down, I laughed. “You’re willing to put up with me, huh?”
“Baby, I was never going to let you go anyway.” His legs slid between mine, spreading them as he settled on top of me.
I held on to him like a baby monkey, kissing him back with abandon when he lowered his mouth down to mine. Low groans rumbled in his chest and his hips rolled. Pleasure sparked deep inside me as the hard heat of his body pushed me into the mattress.
“I think you want a distraction,” he murmured between kisses. “You want me to make you forget.”
“Maybe, but I still love you,” I said, unable to stop myself from repeating it now that the words were out. “I love you, Alex Westwood. You are an answered prayer I never even consciously asked for but always hoped I’d find anyway.”
He groaned, his tongue sliding between my lips again.
I almost got lost in his fervent kisses and the sensation of his hands traveling up and down my sides, but he’d been a lot more verbal about his feelings and what I meant to him than I had been so far.
It was about time I set the record straight from my end.
“One of the biggest reasons I was so upset about my mom’s vote wasn’t only because of the company, or my job, or even the name. It was because the only reason you agreed to marry me in the first place was for those votes and they ended up not meaning anything.”
“Water under the bridge,” he murmured breathlessly, sliding his lips from my mouth to my throat, his palms hot against my sides, but his fingertips gentle as they delved beneath the hem of my shirt. “Those votes meant you agreed to be mine. That matters, Jane. It means everything.”
My heart skipped and my back arched, my body silently begging him to peel off my shirt when he slid his hand closer to my breast. My head, however, was still entirely focused on making sure he didn’t fall asleep tonight with any doubts about where I stood.
“Just so you know, I’m still all in on this. On us. Even without the company.”
“We’re getting the company back, baby. But I’m all in too. No matter what.” He finally gripped the hem of my shirt and pulled it smoothly over my head before his lips crashed back into mine.
His hands were hot against my bare skin, feeling every inch of my torso. He kissed me like he was making a point. A pleasurable shiver rushed through me and I moaned into his mouth, nipping his lower lip before reaching for his belt.
As soon as I got the buckle undone, I folded my fingers around the hem of his shirt and he helped me take it off, pulling it away after bunching the fabric at the nape of his neck into his fist. Every kiss and every touch started a tiny fire in me, little flames that begged for him to stoke them.
Together like this, we felt inevitable, like we’d always been meant to be.
Like no matter what life threw at us, we would always end up together.
Alex understood me like no one else did, knew me in ways even my own family hadn’t ever figured out, and yet, he was still here.
He’d never run, never hesitated, and never even second-guessed.
Somehow, he and I fit together in a way I’d never expected to find, and even though everything else had fallen apart, as long as I had this, had him, I would be okay.
I knew that now. After today. After the way he’d folded me into his arms without question downstairs and had taken care of me even when I hadn’t known how to take care of myself.
Sliding his fingers under my knee, he hooked my leg around his waist and then did the same with the other, rocking into me with his hips perfectly positioned so I could grind against his hard length.
I took the opportunity he was offering, every muscle in my body taut with the tension not only of the day, but having him on top of me like this.
I rolled against him and he groaned again, eyes burning into mine like twin green flames when he lifted his mouth away from my skin to look at me. “Take what you need to forget, Killer. I’m yours. Every single part of me.”
“I don’t only want to forget, Alex. I want to feel. I want to know that we’re still good and that we always will be.” As soon as the words were out, I slanted my lips over his, reached for the waistband of his pants, and slid my fingers in between us.
When I reached the hard metal of his button, it took a second to get it open, but then I unzipped him and tugged his pants off along with his underwear. Alex kicked the garments off, now completely naked as he rolled us over so I was on top.
For a moment, I just looked down at him, letting my gaze linger on the sharp lines of his face, the regal line of his nose, and the five o’clock shadow on his jaw.
My gaze caught on his before I moved it to the elegant column of his throat and finally further down to his broad chest and the insanely well-sculpted blocks of his abdomen.
Alex watched me look at him, taking my hand and placing it right over his racing heart. “Do you feel that?”
I glanced back up into his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, mine is going crazy too.”
“That’s because we are all good, Jane. We took some hits, but we’re still here. Still standing. Still together. So if you want to feel, feel that first.”
As I looked down into his eyes, I took a second to do exactly what he’d said, just feeling his heart beating under my palm. I stroked my fingertips across his skin, bending over to kiss him again and letting my hand slide further down as our tongues tangled together.
I toyed with the trail of hair that ran from his belly button to his pelvis, and he groaned.
His hips arched when I lifted myself off his lap to kneel between his thighs.
Those eyes burned into me when I reached for his shaft, long and curved toward his navel.
I wrapped my fingers around his girth and nearly moaned at the sensation of the hard heat of him against my palm.
I gave him a few leisurely, lazy strokes.
“Jane,” he ground out, but he didn’t stop me. I ran the pad of my thumb across the wetness gathering at his tip and leaned down to taste it.
A deep, loud groan came out of him when I took him into my mouth.
Wrapping my tongue around his broad tip, I moved my hands to his hips, holding them firmly, and I sank my mouth over him.
I couldn’t help but glance up into his eyes as I ran my tongue along the underside of his shaft, loving that I saw his eyelids slam shut and his teeth sink into his lower lip.
Outside of this room—and usually inside it too—Alex Westwood was all-powerful and always in control, yet right here and right now, he was giving himself to me. This man had meant it when he’d said he was mine and the only thing that mattered to me right now was showing him how I felt.
His lips parted when I let my teeth graze gently over his skin.
Then his fingers wound into my hair and gripped it tight.
Slowly withdrawing, I held his gaze before sinking down on him again, wanting to drag it out instead of rushing.
This wasn’t a race, and for once, we actually had some time on our hands.
I kept going, mentally taking note of every reaction I elicited from him and what I’d done to earn it.
From the way the muscles in his stomach rippled, to his thighs tensing, and his hips thrusting gently into my mouth, I didn’t miss a thing.
My panties were soaked and my nipples were hard, my body bursting with pleasure.
He was muttering curses and holding my hair in a firm grasp, finally relinquishing just a tiny bit of control and actually letting me see him vulnerable, right on the edge of falling apart.
I ran my fingernails to his thigh, cupping between his legs and relishing the low growl just before I felt him swell in my mouth. A moment later, he tried to pull himself free, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Jane,” he moaned, saying my name like a warning, but I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted everything he had, even though I was aching to feel him inside me instead.
The next thing I knew, the floodgates opened and he came, hot jets that I swallowed a lot more eagerly than I ever would have thought possible.
After, I kissed my way back up to his lips.
For a moment, I wondered if he’d let me kiss him now that I had the taste of him in my mouth, but he answered the question before I’d even asked when he slid a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him.
After a kiss that made me squirm against him, Alex pushed himself up on one elbow. Still slightly out of breath, he pushed me onto my back and undid my pants. He pushed them down with my panties, his movements slow and deliberate.
When the garment dropped to the floor, he kissed a path up to my mouth, his hand moving behind my back to unhook my bra. The moment it was gone, he sucked each of my nipples into his mouth in turn, his tongue circling around them as he ran a hand up and down the inside of my thigh.
“Alex,” I murmured breathlessly, my hips rolling until he finally slid his fingers between my folds and teased my entrance.
I moaned, my eyes sliding shut. He kissed my breasts, my throat, and my eyelids.
He nibbled at my earlobe, his thumb circling my clit before he finally pushed a finger into me.
Just when I thought I was about to fly off the bed, he took my hip in a firm grip and held me down, watching me intently when I cracked my eyes open to look at him again.
Alex knew exactly where and how to touch me now, playing my body like an instrument he’d mastered decades ago until pleasure streaked through me like lightning. I let go without fighting it, trembling and moaning his name when I came.
We spent the rest of the night just like that, neither of us holding back or breaking the spell we’d fallen into. When Alex finally sank into me, his hands were in mine and he was looking right into my eyes, whispering “I love you” when he bottomed out.
Slowly and gently, we moved together, just feeling, touching, and kissing until it felt like we were the only two people left in the world. Honestly, I never thought I was the type to fall in love, but I would forever be grateful that it had been with Alex.
I felt like I’d found the other half of my soul in him, and with him by my side, I knew I would be okay. Regardless of what the future held, I knew now that all I really needed was Alex, and somehow, by some miracle, I really believed that he felt the same way.